THE BRIGHT SADNESS

Reflection

A new understanding of how the sorrow of Lent and the joy of Easter are inextricably linked.

By the Rev. Dr. Andrew Grosso

The seasons of Lent and Easter are intimately connected, so much so that we cannot understand one without the other. The meaning of each season so closely aligns with and depends on the other that we can’t fully experience either independently.

In other words, observing Lent is not just a matter of gritting our teeth and getting through the slog of whatever temporary self-denials we impose on ourselves so that we can put those self-denials behind us when Easter arrives. Lent gives us an opportunity to learn something that’s essential to our experience of Easter, and understanding the meaning of Easter is likewise necessary for entering fully into the blessings of Lent.

Our sisters and brothers in the Eastern Orthodox tradition have a word that describes the intimate connection between Lent and Easter. The word we translate as “Lent” comes from a Germanic word that simply means “spring season” or “lengthening of days.” The Orthodox, however, use the Greek word charmolypê to describe Lent, a word that can be variously translated as “bright sadness,” “joyful mourning,” or “bitter sweetness.”

Part of what this term is intended to express is the way joy and sorrow inform one another in the life of faith. We tend to think of joy and sorrow as opposite ends of a spectrum, but the notion of charmolypê invites us to think about them as being in some way part and parcel of one another. The correlation between them is positive, not negative: we’re able to enter more fully into one by learning to enter more fully into the other.

We find something similar to the notion of charmolypê described in the scriptures. In the letter to the Hebrews, for example, we are encouraged to “run with perseverance” the same course our Lord himself has run, a course that was fraught with hardship but which ultimately led to great joy and glory (Heb 12.1-2). Similarly, in his letter to the Romans the apostle Paul suggests the “labor pains” of this life are the means whereby “the glory that is about to be revealed to us” is made manifest (Rom 12.1-2).

The possibility of seeing joy and sorrow as being inextricably linked gives us a different perspective on both of them: joy is more than mere pleasure, and sorrow need not lead to despair. Joy, rather, has to do with the deep gladness and satisfaction that arises when we see the purpose and meaning of our lives fulfilled; joy is about consummation and completion. When we think of joy in these terms, we’re able to reconsider our experience of sorrow. Struggle and frustration and even suffering become occasions for a deeper level of engagement in the work necessary to bring about fulfillment and completion. Looking forward to the joy of consummation

enables us to turn occasions that prompt sorrow into opportunities for transformation.

This is hard work, and one of the temptations we encounter in the life of faith is to forego this work in the hopes we can experience joy while avoiding sorrow. But the seasons of Lent and Easter remind us Jesus was not raised from the dead to new and imperishable life without having first died. There is no Easter without Good Friday, and there is no real joy to be had apart from the work required to bring our lives to their consummation and thereby fulfill the purpose for which God made us.

Our capacity for bringing joy out of sorrow is one of the ways we bear witness to our identity as those who bear the divine image; in other words, when we live our lives in ways that leverage the connection between joy and sorrow we reflect the character of God himself. God works to bring about the fulfillment of his will, and in so doing God sets himself against the sorrow of our lives and the brokenness of the whole world.

At the beginning and the end of the biblical narrative, we see God at work, bringing order out of chaos and creating life amid circumstances that threaten death. In the book of Genesis, God sets himself against the “formless void and darkness” of the primordial chaos, and after successive efforts brings about an ordered creation that is “very good,” one that becomes the occasion for celebration and blessing (Gen 1.1-2.3). In the book of Revelations, God likewise sets himself against the darkness and chaos of a world in rebellion against him, and brings about “a new heaven and a new earth” in which death and mourning and pain are no more (Rev 21.1-7).

What does all of this mean for our observance of both Lent and Easter? It means our observance of Lent can be about more than temporary self-denials that we quickly put behind us once the season is over. Instead, Lent can be an opportunity for deep engagement in those areas of our lives where we would most like to see God at work. When we do this, then our observance of Easter will be the occasion for more than remembering something that happened long ago. Instead, Easter will be a celebration of the new life given to us through the risen Christ who meets us and calls us by name and pours out his Holy Spirit upon us. Then the struggle and frustration and even the suffering of our lives will be transformed by the joyful consummation of the work God brings about in us, and our lives will bear witness to his honor and glory.